Friday, May 11, 2012

FBI to Blitz Public With Economic Espionage Ads

cnbc.com

Today, the FBI is doing something it rarely does — talking, in public, about spies.

In a nationwide advertising campaign launching today that includes bus shelters, billboards and a website, the FBI is targeting corporate espionage — and encouraging employees of American corporations to be wary of spies in their midst.

“We’re doing something we’ve never done before, and it’s almost counterintuitive in the espionage business,” FBI Counterintelligence Assistant director Frank Figliuzzi told CNBC Thursday. “We’re talking to the general public about the threat from economic espionage.”

According to Figliuzzi, the current FBI caseload shows that secrets worth more than $13 billion have been stolen from American companies — often by insiders or former insiders at the companies that have been victimized. The FBI says its arrests for economic espionage have doubled in the last four years, and that it has already surpassed last year’s arrest total halfway through this fiscal year.

The FBI says the sheer scale of economic espionage against the nation’s top companies threatens America’s economic and technical dominance of the global economy.

Prior to starting ComSec LLC in 2007, Mr. LeaSure was active within the counterespionage, counterterrorism and TSCM fields for 26 years. He has attained the prestigious CCISM, Certified Counterespionage Information Security Management Certification. He also has extensive training, knowledge and experience in the identification of eavesdropping devices, espionage detection methods and the intelligence collection tactics most often employed by perpetrators of electronic espionage.

J.D. LeaSure is also the Director of the Espionage Research Institute International (ERII). As Director, he is tasked with ensuring the organization is successful in its mission to provide continuing education, facilitate professional relationship building and ensure the counterespionage & counterintelligence skill sets of its membership remains current as espionage tactics and devices evolve.